Equality is not an arbitrary notion
I find people's perspectives on equality interesting.
There is the equality that several have referred to, well-characterized by Leopold99 (the most recent statement of the idea):
Leopold99 said:
equal means exactly the same.
there are literally 100s of ways one individual is different from another individual.
Another notion of equality, one I consider more applicable in the practical application, is equality before law. As an American, this is a fundamental part of our cultural identity:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
(
Declaration of Independence)
• • •
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
(
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution)
Equality before the law is not an arbitrary belief. The Founders did not declare the equality of men to be self-evident as a merely convenient political argument. It is, in its context, an inescapable conclusion according to any examination of circumstance.
Previously, such equality was rejected for arbitrary notions. Circles of nobility in European society expected and received greater consideration under the law than common folk, and despite our Declaration of Independence and the Fourteenth Amendment, Americans
still try to reject that equality for aesthetic reasons and self-interest. Women were excluded from the Fourteenth Amendment, as evidenced by the need for the Nineteenth, which granted them the right to vote. Despite its passage and ratification in the wake of the Civil War, black people were denied equal protection at least for over a century. Indeed, a question exists whether or not we have erased that inequality even today, having elected a black president. Furthermore, as the gay-rights debate shows, despite a growing body of evidence leading to the inescapable conclusion that homosexuals are, in fact, a direct product of nature, some would still exclude them from equal consideration.
Any examination of inherent supremacy before the law—such as notions of nobility, assertions of race, ethnicity, or religion, and the gay-rights debate—will expose claims of and demands for superiority as false, insupportable save for aesthetics and self-interest.
Many people fear equality, seeing in the concept some potential outcome akin to Vonnegut's
Harrison Bergeron. And while such outcomes should be guarded against, that need should not exclude equality before the law. The mere fact of someone's disability—inherent or acquired—should not make them a lesser being in the eyes of the law.
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Notes:
Declaration of Independence. http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm
"Amendment XIV". United States Constitution. http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html
